As we all tune into the Coronavirus spread around the world, have you noticed what is happening – or not happening – in China?
The virus isn’t spreading.
The virus spread from Wuhan as people traveled from Wuhan to other parts of the world…including other parts of China. And as countries amass cases in the thousands, extremely dense cities in China with populations as large as many countries barely have any reported cases.
As a matter of fact, in the first few weeks of March, China’s cases increased by only about 2,000 and for the last few days have reported no new cases.
If we don’t think about it, we assume they used extreme quarantine measures to contain and mitigate the virus until it died out.
But if we think about it, it doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t follow any of the models for how the virus acts or for how community spread works. For example, check out these metro areas and the reported cases:
Hangzhou: 21.1 million people, 1,238 cases
Beijing: 22.5 million people, 537 cases
Chongqing: 29.9 million people, 577 cases
Shanghai: 35.9 million people, 404 cases
Guangzhou: 44.2 million people, 1,415 cases
In comparison Wuhan has about 8.3 million people and 67,800 cases.
It doesn’t make sense. China should have well over 1 million cases through community spread.
This begs the questions, “What is going on? How did China stop community spread in its largest cities? Did China figure out a way to shut down the virus? Or, is China not reporting all of its new cases?”
And if you were paying attention, the Coronavirus Task Force also asked these questions (to themselves).
I write all this as an example of why you need to pay attention to what is going on around you, THINK about what you are hearing and ask questions. Don’t accept superficial answers so you don’t have to think any deeper. If it doesn’t make sense, it’s because it doesn’t make sense. So, continue to ask more questions until you figure out how all of the pieces fit together.
